


Epilogue's Finale

by britishparty



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, basically?, the epilogue to the epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britishparty/pseuds/britishparty
Summary: Not even the boundary between planes, between the living and the dead, can keep Magnus' family away from him for very long.





	Epilogue's Finale

Magnus lives on the shores of a sea filled with glowing lights, in a small cottage his wife built in the fifty-odd years they were separated.

He’s dead.

It’s-- a strangely easy thing to accept. He’s been dead before.

He’s dead but this time, it sticks. This time, he _wants_ it to stick. No more centuries, no more running.

Just a sea of dead people, a cedarwood cottage, his wife, and two dogs.

For what feels like an endless span of days, they are alone. Magnus wonders if Julia was lonely, before him.

“What’d I be lonely for?” Julia says, smiling, when he asks. “I knew you were coming. I should be asking you.”

“I, uh, I was,” Magnus tells her. “But I got better.”

There is no sun, in the Astral Plane. Nothing to mark the passage of time; no stars, just the lights drifting lazily beneath the surface of the water.

Magnus almost forgot what settling down feels like.

It must have been an eternity by the time Kravitz checks in on them next. He doesn’t step on to the island, just stands outside on the water and shouts.

“I found her, Magnus!” he calls.

Her who, Magnus doesn’t know, but he goes anyway. He’s still a hero; if Kravitz was looking for someone, then it was someone worth finding.

And it definitely was. She’s spent enough time being lost.

“Lucretia,” he says, in surprise.

She’s about twenty years younger than she was when he first saw her in the Bureau of Balance, the same age she was when the Starblaster took them off their first world.

“Magnus,” she says, agreeably. “It’s been-- gods, twenty years?”

“At least,” he tells her, heading down the lawn towards her.

Lucretia died first, of them all. The twenty years she gave in Wonderland could never be returned to her, even after obtaining the power of the Animus Bell.

Taako argued valiantly on her behalf, when Kravitz came for her. He even threatened to break up with him, at which point Lucretia’s soul borrowed Kravitz’s scythe and cut her own way into the Astral Plane. Or so Kravitz told them; none of them could actually see Lucretia at that point, so Kravitz was forced to pass on her arguments to Taako.

She stands a little awkwardly in front of him, Kravitz looking at her expectantly.

Magnus pulls her into an embrace, pressing her against him and just remembering _how much_ she gave. She did so much for them, twenty years and a hundred, and devoted everything she had left to fixing everything she’d ever broken.

Sure, Lucretia fucked up somewhere in the middle, but Magnus forgave her fifty years ago and he would never do anything in half measures.

“She needs a place to stay,” Kravitz tells Magnus. “I found her with Maureen, and quite frankly I don’t think the Astral Plane could survive an eternity of their plotting.”

Lucretia just smiles, when Magnus lets her go.

“You built a house,” she comments, glancing past him.

“Julia built it,” he tells her, then lights up. “Oh, come meet Julia! Jules, we have a guest!”

He turns to see Julia already standing in the doorway, grinning.

“You must be Lucretia,” Julia says, making her way down the lawn as their bloodhound hobbles his way outside after her. “Magnus has said so many wonderful things.”

She, too, hugs Lucretia, and Magnus hears her say quietly, “I think I’ve got you to thank for him. Sometimes good things come out of terrible ones.”

When Lucretia pulls her face out of Julia’s shoulder, her eyes are watery again, on the verge of tears.

“Thank you,” she says gently, and wipes her eyes, regains her composure.

“I guess-- come on in, Lucretia. Are you staying long?” Magnus reaches out a hand to help her off the water, onto the slope of their yard.

Lucretia glances over her shoulder at Kravitz as she lets Magnus and Julia pull her onto the island. “I think I’m staying for as long as I need to,” she says, finally.

Kravitz nods, and turns to go, and Magnus gives him a half-wave goodbye.

“Well, Jules, sounds like we need to start that expansion a little early,” Magnus says over Lucretia’s head.

“Oh, I don’t want to be any inconvenience--” Lucretia starts.

“I’ll arm wrestle you for the couch,” Julia says, also over Lucretia’s head.

“I feel like I lose either way,” Magnus mutters, and gestures for Lucretia to follow Julia inside.

The extension to the house doesn’t take them all that long to finish-- it wasn’t a big house to start with, and now they’ve got two skilled carpenters who have nothing else to do and a wizard to help out.

However, Magnus has a sneaking suspicion of what’s coming next, and he almost immediately starts working on the next addition to the house. If he’s right, this won’t be a cottage by the time all this is over.

Lucretia settles into life in the Astral Plane, in their home here. Kravitz visits, sometimes, and brings her books from the Material Plane and empty ones to write in. She starts writing fiction now, in the absence of heroic deeds to record.

Magnus is up on the roof when he hears the new visitor arrive.

“Maggie!” she calls.

Startled, he scrambles to catch his footing and not fuck up the tile he’d been putting back in place.

“Killian?” he realizes, sticking his head over the edge to see her standing beside the worktable.

“My dude, we are some short-lived fuckers, huh?” she calls up.

“Hey, I honestly wasn’t expecting, what, fifty years,” he says half-sliding down the ladder to greet her.

“Wives are a good influence,” Killian says.

And she looks like she did, fifty years ago. More than fifty? How long did she live?

Man, _fuck_ math.

“You’ve gotta, oh man, you’ve gotta meet Jules,” Magnus says, giving her a quick hug and then half-dragging her towards the front of the house. “Jules! Jules, the next one’s here!” he yells.

“The next one?” Killian asks.

“Yeah, Lucretia beat you here. Well, I guess technically she beat all of us, but-- or, well, I guess really Jules died first.” As he speaks, he’s shoving open the door and pulling Killian inside excitedly, where the dogs come over to sniff her and Julia appears in the entryway to the kitchen.

“You must be Killian,” Julia says happily. “Come on, come in, Lucretia and Magnus both speak so well of you and Carey.”

“Oh, fuck, Carey.” Killian stops in her tracks, smile dropping from her face. “Oh fuck, she’s gonna be _pissed_ that I’m dead.”

“I understand the feeling,” Julia tells her with a warm smile, and gingerly leads her towards the kitchen.

Naturally, Carey is the next one to arrive. Magnus slams open the door and barges out, scooping her up in his arms - she’s laughing and crying before he even gets to her - and all he does is say, “Hey there, lizard girl,” carry her inside, and hand her over to Killian.

She slots into place so easily, and when two-thirds of Team Sweet Flips beg Magnus and Julia for a sparring arena, he’s about to say there’s no space when he remembers that last time he was on the roof, the island seemed a little bigger than it originally did.

So Magnus builds Carey and Killian the sparring arena of their dreams, and he only hopes a _little_ that maybe it could somehow entice Noelle out of the Astral Sea.

Apparently, it only takes a little hope.

Carey and Killian come running, carrying an unfamiliar slender young woman overhead as she laughs helplessly. They kick the door open (a frequent occurrence) and as one, violently plant the woman on her feet in front of Magnus.

He doesn’t recognize her face, but she lights up when she sees him and excitedly says, “Magnus!” and he would know that voice _anywhere,_ even on an island in the middle of the Astral Plane.

He hugs her and her arms aren’t metal, aren’t _quite_ as built for hugging, but she’s part laughing and part crying and he hasn’t seen Noelle since she fucking _murdered a Judge with a flying laboratory._

It takes a lot of explaining, and Kravitz has to be persuaded to let her stay - Magnus threatens to tell Taako Kravitz is being uncooperative and his face turns bone-white, literally bone, it’s a skull - but it all works out, and a second bedroom is built next to Killian and Carey’s and the whole Team Sweet Flips is back together, under one roof.

Of course, sweet cider-making Noelle’s human body isn’t built for combat yet, doesn’t respond right, and Magnus loves to watch her train back into shape, put muscle on her bones.

He keeps building rooms, adds two more and then waits. Nobody arrives for a while, for whatever constitutes days or years on this plane.

Lup and Barry finally badger the house’s location out of Kravitz. Seeing two liches chilling in the living room, or in the kitchen, becomes commonplace. Magnus does have to admit, he’s missed the twins’ cooking.

The next visitor takes everyone by surprise.

It’s a striking young man, glasses and scruffy hair, but well-dressed and standing calmly beside Kravitz, smiling at the house.

“Kravitz?” Magnus asks, addressing the reaper in his uncertainty.

“Come on, sir, put the pieces together,” says the young man at his side, and _holy fucking Istus that sure is Angus isn’t it._ For not even a second can Magnus mistake that voice, even after years of puberty.

“Ango!” Magnus lights up, darting forward to pull him into a hug and ruffle his hair. “Man, you. You sure grew up, huh?”

“I’m sure not ten years old anymore, sir,” Angus agrees as they pull apart. “I’m just a plain ol’ detective now.”

“You were,” Magnus reminds him, laughing a little. “Now you can be the world’s greatest dead detective. Come on in, Angus.”

It-- it sort of stings, a little. Angus is here, but Merle and Taako aren’t. It’s _unfair,_ that they got to see Angus’ life from beginning to end, and that they will have even longer to achieve their ends, while Angus was limited by a mere human lifespan.

But Magnus doesn’t find it in himself to envy them. If he was going to live five hundred years longer, it just would’ve taken him longer to find Julia again.

After that, a lot of time passes. Magnus still has no way of knowing-- but Lup and Barry tell them it’s been nearly fifty years since Magnus died.

Magnus adds another two bedrooms. And a better kitchen, just in case Taako plans on dying early. And a second living room. And like four more bathrooms.

To his surprise, Merle is the next one who shows up.

“Magnus, buddy,” Merle says, standing in the doorway. “No welcoming party for ol’ Merle?”

“Merle,” Magnus says, dropping his book open on the couch and rising immediately. “I-- I honestly wasn’t expecting you yet. Don’t dwarves live a long time?”

“I’m old, man,” Merle says, coming in and plopping himself down on the vacant couch cushion next to where Magnus was sitting. “Taako’s the one who’s gonna be _real_ fashionably late to the party.”

“How have-- how’ve you been? How’re Mavis and Mookie?” Magnus sits self-consciously, aware he hasn’t actually seen Merle in what’s probably over fifty years, now.

“Good, they’re good. Mavis is a real smart cookie, definitely doesn’t take after me. Mookie’s still a wild card.” Merle chuckles to himself, and Magnus’ heart pangs. Merle-- the next time Merle sees his kids, they’ll be dead.

“But hey, you’ve been pretty busy for a dead dude,” Merle says, thumping the side of Magnus’ leg with the back of his hand. “Nice place.”

“Thanks,” Magnus says, pulling himself back to the present. “Julia and I, uh, we spent a lot of time on it. Homemade. Like, literally. We made a home.”

Merle gives him a hug that Magnus really isn’t expecting, but he leans into it gratefully nonetheless. “You’ve done good, bud,” Merle says quietly. “You’ve done real good.”

Magnus’ next construction project is the garden. Merle wants it _huge,_ a temple to Pan in its own right. Magnus didn’t even know that plants could grow in the Astral Plane, but Merle shakes a few seeds loose from his wooden arm and chats them up - Magnus locks everyone inside the house during those trauma-inducing moments - and suddenly there is an array of more flowers than Magnus knew existed, blooming halfway up the side of the house.

That’ll be terrible for the wood, he thinks distantly, but really it’s so pretty and it makes Merle so happy, so he allows it.

At this point, the house is sprawling and the island is distinctly bigger than it was at first. Johann and the old bloodhound are still around, getting in the way and causing ruckus, and Team Sweet Flips sometimes makes ventures out into the Astral Sea, and Lucretia still writes and wizards it up with Angus, and Merle gardens, and Lup and Barry pop in randomly, and Magnus and Julia have a family that they love.

Time passes, _so much_ time. Lup and Barry bring back tales of the Prime Material Plane, tales of new heroes, some from Merle’s school, some from their own rough starts. Lup brings Magnus some of Taako’s macaroons, which Kravitz is bribed out of confiscating, and Barry brings Lucretia more and more books to read, and Angus puzzles and mystery novels.

Magnus is told it’s been over two hundred and fifty years since his death when the newest visitor steps in.

“Lucretia?” is the first thing this visitor says, and she is on her feet and running to hug him before Magnus can even make it out of the kitchen.

Davenport stands, looking a little confused but happy, in the doorway. He’s dressed in his red captain’s gear, IPRE badge proudly displayed on his chest.

“Did you _build_ this?” he asks Magnus as soon as he sees him, pointing under Lucretia’s arm around at everything.

“Yeah, it, it took some time, but it’s home,” Magnus says.

“No, it’s really nice,” Davenport says, and smiles. “Got a spare bunk?”

“Finally, someone who understands the rules of two-person fantasy euchre!” Merle yells from the second living room.

But now the house is actively waiting. _Everyone_ is waiting. They’re only missing one.

Lup warns them that elves live a _real_ fucking long time.

“There’s really not much point in sitting around waiting,” she tells them. “Taako can, uh, live to like seven hundred and something? Honestly he probably won’t make it that long, he doesn’t really make, well, good life choices, but he could. Just a warning.”

She turns to head to the kitchen, and is stopped by the sound of tearing cloth.

Lup swings around to look, everyone who has gathered now in the first living room glancing over to see a dark swirling portal, showing a depiction of blurred stars in it.

And then a delicate, elven hand.

“Miss me?” Taako cries out as he makes his literally world-tearing entrance into Magnus’ living room in the Astral Plane. In one hand, he’s holding a scythe with a gleaming silver blade and a raven’s skull affixed to it.

Lup is the first to break the silence.

“Did you-- did you _steal_ Kravitz’s scythe?”

“Steal, borrow,” Taako says airily, spinning it in his grip. “I know he’ll take it back _eventually,_ so it’s not really stealing, is it, Lulu?”

Stepping out of the still-open portal comes Kravitz himself, still in his skull-and-robe garb. He reaches out for his scythe and tries to take it.

“What are you _doing,_ Taako?” he demands, as Taako spins it out of his reach.

“What, you expect me to wait two hundred years just to join the party, babe?” Taako says with a wink. “Not happening, nuh-uh, Taako is moving _in.”_

“You can’t just-- you can’t just _move_ to the _Astral Plane,”_ Kravitz protests.

“I mean, technically,” Barry pipes up, “there’s not a rule against it? I mean, from what the Raven Queen’s said, we just have to do the opposite, keep people in, yeah?”

“He’s--” Kravitz throws out a hand, gestures wildly towards Taako, “he’s _alive._ How did he _get_ in here?”

Lup drifts over to him and smooths a hand over Kravitz’s shoulder. “Kravitz, my man, you are a fucking good-looking dude but Taako’s still Taako. He’s good here.”

“You’re-- you’re okay with your brother _throwing away his life?”_ Kravitz demands, turning on her now.

“Says my dead boyfriend,” Taako chimes in. “Honestly, Kravitz, babe, just think of the plusses! You can combine your work life with your _Taako_ life. _And,_ I can finally meet your boss.”

“Just-- give me, give me back my goddamn scythe. That’s the weapon of a fucking _grim reaper,_ Taako, not some self-invite to a party in the Astral Plane.”

Taako hands the scythe back to Kravitz and pivots on his heel, turning to face the room. “Uh, on that note, if this is a welcoming party, it’s a pretty fucking _terrible_ one.” He claps his hand, and half a dozen bottles of expensive-ass champagne are conjured on the table. “Let’s have us a fucking dead people reunion!”

Over three hundred years after his death, Magnus toasts to the survival of their universe and all the hundred universes before it.

He’s got his wife and his family and maybe they’ve only got so much time, but they have as much time as they need.

**Author's Note:**

> So from rough estimates I did for how long everyone would wind up living:  
> Lucretia: 50, lives 30 years  
> Magnus: 30, lives 50 years  
> Killian: 20, lives 55 years  
> Carey: 20, lives 56 years  
> Angus: 10, lives 80 years  
> Merle: 200, lives 120 years  
> Davenport: 60, lives 375 years  
> Taako: 150?, lives 550 years?


End file.
